


Teachers To Suit Their Own Passions

by tiltedsyllogism



Series: Word Made Flesh [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bathtub Sex, Bibliomancy, Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Johnlock Roulette, M/M, Phone Sex, Smut, but they are doing the best they can considering the source material, dubious use of scripture, hot water and bibles and bananas, let's be real the dirty talk is not actually all that great, probably also some crack, sing to me O paraclete of pornography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 07:45:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3642300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiltedsyllogism/pseuds/tiltedsyllogism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is away at a conference, stuck in a shitty hotel, and feeling too exhausted to deliver on his promise of phone sex.  Sherlock, as usual, is persistent and resourceful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teachers To Suit Their Own Passions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [destinationtoast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinationtoast/gifts).



> This was prompted by destinationtoast [over on tumblr](http://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/post/114816279954/banana-bible-bath-art-and-other-replies), because believe me, I could never have come up with this one on my own. One hundred casks of wine to superstar beta [HiddenLacuna](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddenlacuna/works), for helping me pop my porn cherry.

________________________________________  
“It’s about time. You said you’d call by nine.” The line was bad, but Sherlock’s sullenness came through clearly.

John dropped into the hotel room’s uncomfortable desk chair and rubbed his face in exhaustion. “Look, I’m sorry. I did tell you that the last session might run long.” Sherlock huffed in a crackle of static, and John probably would have been irritated if he weren’t so, so tired. “Can we… it’s been a crushing day, Sherlock, and I just want to talk to you a bit before I collapse for the night, all right?”

“Fine. You’re here now, that’s what matters.” In the background, John heard the sound of splashing. “Give me a moment to warm the bath, and then we’ll get started.”

John remembered, now. This was only the second time he had spent the night away from Baker Street since he and Sherlock started sleeping together, but it was long enough for Sherlock to have developed a very fixed idea about how they ought to cope with the distance. John had attended a veterans’ meetup in Bristol last month, only days after Sherlock had discovered John’s gift for dirty talk, and when John had called to say a quick goodnight, Sherlock had wheedled him into concocting an elaborate scenario that had caused Sherlock to drop the phone, and left John himself dizzy and shaking.

When John had broken the news about this conference in Sheffield, Sherlock had been strangely pleased; strange, that was, until John realized that Sherlock was of a mind to expand their repertoire of long-distance sex techniques. There had, he now recalled, been some mention of a bathtub.

John sighed. “Sherlock, I’m not sure I’m up for… you know, anything… _creative_.”

Sherlock’s pout was audible. “John, I’ve been by myself _all day,_ waiting for you.”

“All right, all right. I’ll… think of something.” John closed his eyes (God, that felt good) and made a perfunctory attempt to rack his brain. “Sherlock, I can’t, I’m so sorry, I just…”

“There has to be _something_ ,” Sherlock snapped. “A picture on your wall, a brochure, a book…”

John stood up and cast his eyes over the drab brown room. “It’s a shitty cut-rate hotel room. It’s barely got furniture. If I’d booked into the conference hotel, maybe that would be a different story, but there’s nothing here.”

“Check the night-table drawer,” said Sherlock, in a different tone.

John leaned over and pulled open the drawer, which was empty, except for one thing, and really, even John should have known to expect that.

“What’s a bible good for?”

“You need inspiration,” said Sherlock crisply. “There’s your source.”

John boggled. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“Not joking.” The line went quiet as Sherlock shut off the bath tap. “Now either come up with some inspiration on your own, or use the materials you have to hand. I’m _waiting._ ”

“Okay,” John said. “Okay.” He pulled off his jeans and clambered into the bed, reaching into the drawer to retrieve the bible. The sheets were cold (like he was) and stiff (like he wasn’t) and he hoped he could manage to please Sherlock without having to get too involved himself.

“All right,” he said. “So how will this work?”

“Open it up and read a verse,” Sherlock replied impatiently, as if it were obvious.

John frowned down at the bible. “Okay, but what then?”

“Then we’ll figure it out.”

Sherlock’s limited patience was clearly running out, so John let the book fall open on his chest, then picked it up and read the first verse that caught his eye.

“‘When David had gone a short distance beyond the summit, there was Ziba, the steward of Meph… Mephibosheth, waiting to meet him. He had a string of…’” he frowned, “‘donkeys saddled and loaded with two hundred loaves of bread, a hundred cakes of raisins, a hundred cakes of figs and a skin of wine.’ That’s, um, second Samuel. So what now?”

At the other end of the line, Sherlock pondered a moment, sloshily. “Be right back,” he said, and set the phone down on the edge of the tub with a resonant _clunk_ before John could protest.

John sighed and reread the verse to himself while he waited. He hoped Sherlock had some ideas.

There was a flutter of sound as Sherlock picked it up. “Back,” he said, his voice aglow with some sort of worrying victory.

“Where did you go?”

“Kitchen. I’ve brought a banana with me. We don’t have any wine in, and you finished the bread before you left. No donkeys in the flat, obviously.”

“Right.” John rubbed the back of his neck. “Too bad there are no apples.”

Sherlock scoffed. “What would I _do_ with an apple, John?”

Which was a good point. John wasn’t sure he wanted to think about what Sherlock would do with a banana, either, although his cock seemed to be fairly positive on the idea. “I, um….”

“Besides, if you’re thinking of the Garden of Eden, it wasn’t an apple at all. The Hebrew simply says ‘fruit.’”

“How do you even know that?” John asked weakly.

“Hmm? Oh. Spent the summer with my uncle once when my parents took Mycroft to Switzerland. He had a mind to reform me. I learned everything I could about the historical origins of the Bible in order to get back at him. Now can we please…”

“Yes, sorry. Um.” John closed the book between his palms, gave it a little shake for good measure, and then dropped it open again. Picking it back up, he read, “‘Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.’” He sniggered a bit, feeling a bit like he was back in sixth form. “I guess I’m the supplier of seed in this scenario.”

“Mmm. Yes.” Sherlock’s voice had taken on the melting quality of arousal. “Very enlarging.” John laughed, and felt a flare of affection. It wasn’t exactly sexy, but it was a fun sort of game, perving up the bible. Now that he was a bit more comfortable, the prospect of continuing to humor Sherlock wasn’t so bad. 

“Shall I keep going?”

“Obviously.”

John flipped through the book and dropped his finger onto the open page. “Okay, this one is from one of the psalms. ‘O God, the nations have invaded your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple.’”

“‘Invaded,’” Sherlock repeated, his voice rich. John swallowed, hard.

“Wait, it’s not over. ‘They have defiled your holy temple. They have….’” John’s voice caught, just a bit; “‘they have laid your temple in ruins.’”

“Have they.” Sherlock’s voice had dropped even deeper. John realized that his hand had slipped down to rest on the growing bulge in his pants, and that he was fingering it idly.

“So, um. What does that mean you should do?”

“I think it means that _you,_ John, are going to breach my temple.”

“Am I.” John’s hand slipped inside his pants as he thought about what Sherlock might be doing to cause all that splashing. “Me and that banana?”

Sherlock chuckled. “You are my first fruits, you know.”

John couldn’t help moaning, just a bit. He was ashamed at how hot it made him, knowing he was Sherlock’s first, but _fuck_. “I have enjoyed plundering the temple, you know.”

“The temple has enjoyed it too.”

“I’m pleased to hear it,” John murmured.

Sherlock hummed into the phone, and John’s skin began to feel too tight. “Read me another. The temple is, ah, preparing itself.”

“Hmm. Okay.” John ran his hand along the length of his cock a few more times before picking up the bible again. “Oh, this is a good one. ‘Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you.’ You hear that?” John’s voice had gone husky. “Discipline, Sherlock. You hear my voice, and you make way, all right? You open your temple to me.”

“Yes, John,” Sherlock gasped.

“Hang on, there’s more.” John’s left hand was on his cock again, still stroking through the fabric of his pants, but he held the book tipped up against him as he read out the rest of the verse. “‘And on earth he let you see his great fire, and… and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.’” John huffed a breath. “Believe me, Sherlock, I have that fire in me.”

“I know you do,” Sherlock panted. “I want it in me, too. I want you in me.”

“Yes,” John hissed.

Sherlock gave a hushed gasp, and John’s cock jumped. “Is that, have you….”

“Yes,” Sherlock whispered, and John shoved his pants down and began jerking himself in earnest. “It’s not… it’s not _you_ , but… keep reading, John, your voice, it helps me….”

“Yeah, all right.” John’s hand stilled on his cock as he flipped through the bible with his other hand. “Um, oh God –” and it was crazy, five minutes ago it would have made him laugh, but now he felt a surge in his blood as he read, pushing him close to the edge as he stroked himself faster and faster – “um, ‘the, uh, right hand of the Lord exalts, the right hand of the… the Lord does… valiantly…’ oh God, Sherlock….”

“John!” Sherlock wailed, hoarse and shaky, and John’s body seized, and he pulsed all over his own right hand and the stiff, cheap hotel sheets. After a moment of basking in post-orgasmic haze, he wiped his hand on the sheet and rolled to the other side of the bed. It was cold, but it was clean, and his own body was plenty warm now.

“That was a good idea,” he murmured.

“Of course it was, it was mine,” Sherlock returned, but his voice was mellow.

John laughed. “Yeah, all right. ‘Much rejoicing in the tents of the righteous.’”

“What’s that?” Sherlock asked. His voice had slowed to a honeyed crawl.

“It’s another line in that psalm. You’d best get out of the tub before you drop off.”

“Mmm. Maybe.”

“I mean it,” John said, in the absence of splashing. “If you fall asleep in there you may drown, and then we can never do this again.”

“Good point.” Sherlock grunted, and John heard the water swirl around him as he stood; John predicted he would be asleep within five minutes. “You’ll be home tomorrow evening, right?”

“Yep. Maybe we can try this again in person.”

“Possibly.” Sherlock sounded dubious. “I’m almost certain there isn’t a bible in the flat. Perhaps Mrs. Hudson could…”

“Yeah, Sherlock, I’d really rather not.” John grinned. “Besides, I have some ideas about _Grey’s Anatomy_.”

**Author's Note:**

> The biblical verses cited here are, in order: 2 Samuel 16:1; 2 Corinthians 9:10; Psalm 79:1; Deuteronomy 4:36; and Psalms 118:16. All verses are in New International Version, since that (from what I can tell) is the translation the Gideons use. 
> 
> Story title comes from 2 Timothy 4:3: “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.” In other words: beware of sneaky assholes who interpret the text the way they want to, rather than paying attention to what it really says. (I cheated just a bit; that one is ESV, not NIV.)


End file.
